In a Utopian guild, you would have motivated achievers who WANT to kill bosses and get phat lewt. And they want to do so in a timely manner with as little fuss as possible. In reality, we have people of varying temperaments, with varying political issues, having good days and bad days and are all trying to get along long enough to do the job at hand.

Maybe i am just getting old and playing the geezer card, but I encourage a certain amount of reciprocity from my guild leaders in exchange for the raiding experience I bring to my role and the quality of time I put in both before a fight and during it. Being able to count on getting a hall pass to go potty and grab a soda is part of that exchange of respect – payback, if you will, for doing a good job, bringing my own top-notch consumables and showing up on time well researched in the various strategies for that night. But most of the time things just don’t seem to connect. Here is hoping this very positive blog you wrote helps change things in the raiding scene a little bit. Would be awesome to see normal, every-day guild raids run just as efficiently and drama-free as the best sports teams and hobby clubs.

Regarding content breaks … as long as we’re still making progress, we’ll keep working on the same content. If, however, we’re bashing our heads against the wall and making the same mistakes over and over, it’s time for a change. None of us are in there to accumulate repair bills and broken gear.

Good luck implementing your breaks … we’ve found it does greatly improve our productivity and environment while raiding.

I left the raid feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, when usually I just feel drained and ready to take a break. And all we did was wipe on the Dreamwalker encounter for an hour!
.-= Dristanel´s last blog ..Secret Admirer Project =-.

As an aside I’m impressed to see someone else from TVC EU posting on the intarwebs! If you use trade chat on TVC as a barometer of what the server is like I wouldn’t have expected it.

<- Echosnare on TVC EU
/wave
.-= Echo´s last blog ..The new LFG system =-.

@Tarqon – The feature that we’ve gotten the most praise and thanks from our raiders for out of this entire policy has been announcing the time of the next break. People REALLY like knowing when they’ll next get a cup of coffee without keeping the entire raid waiting. We should really stick to it more closely

@Jen – Welcome, to your baby priest! And erm… the officer’s quitting sounds a little off. I hope your guild is able to chill a bit if the atmosphere gets uncomfortable!

@Lissanna – Aye, quite right. Got to time the breaks right to get enough playing in – and timing around trash kills/respawns helps too. How does your guild manage breaks?

Tarqon – Fair point. We used to use judgement-call breaks right up until last week. However – this new break system really does seem to be working out for us. I think one of the basic problems with judgement breaks is that by the time you decide to call a break your raiders are, to varying degrees, already miffed with the encounter and by then you’ve already wasted time by not giving them a break (this is another concept which the book ‘Slack’ tackles, in the guise of risk management).

Keep em coming folks – what works for your guild, or what do you wish was the norm?
.-= Mimetir´s last blog ..Juddr: #WoM #WoW Slacking helps you raid. No really – read my post over at WoM if you don’t believe me! http://bit.ly/d2CBhO =-.

I however slightly disagree on the content breaks. It may be fine with fights like Festergut and Blood Princes but it’s no good switching between Putricide and Bloodqueen. Since the tries are limited its best to try and get the most training on one of these encounters instead of trying them both a little.
.-= Lowtec´s last blog ..The Tester =-.